


go ahead (i'll be alright)

by kay_emm_gee



Series: Wells Jaha Appreciation Week [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Snapshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 11:24:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7313248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_emm_gee/pseuds/kay_emm_gee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Wells, please.</em>
</p>
<p>Try as he might, he can’t say the words. He has fought to keep her from knowing the truth for so long that he can’t give up, but neither can he bring himself repeat the lie that he has been living for a year now. He can’t do it anymore, not when Clarke is looking at him like that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	go ahead (i'll be alright)

**Author's Note:**

> For Wells Jaha Appreciation Week, Day 1: Favorite Quote

_Wells, please._ **  
**

Try as he might, he can’t say the words. He has fought to keep her from knowing the truth for so long that he can’t give up, but neither can he bring himself repeat the lie that he has been living for a year now. He can’t do it anymore, not when Clarke is looking at him like that.

Like her world is falling down and he is the only person that can pull her from the wreckage.

Like she is sorry and scared and so very, very lost.

So he says nothing, and then she knows. 

It doesn’t matter now, all the effort he had put into saving her the pain of losing another parent (this one to betrayal instead of the stars). All the frustration and anger and sheer injustice that overwhelmed him sometimes when he thought about his friend imprisoned–imprisoned and hating him–is behind them, beyond this moment when he knows that she _knows_.

She knows he never stopped being her friend even when she wanted him to, even when there were days when _he_ wanted to. Growing up, it was hard to love her sometimes (and not just because she used to steal his crayons or beat him in soccer video games). Clarke was a force of nature too small for a ship among the stars, and being around her sometimes felt like being caught in a storm. It left him a little winded from keeping up with a girl who just assumed he’d follow in her footsteps, a little tired from always rescuing her from guards who caught her (and by extension him) sneaking into places they weren’t supposed to be, a little bruised from being so magnetic that he couldn’t stop his heart from falling into her orbit.

It left him a bit broken from loving a girl who hated him, but with one look and two words from her, Wells can feel those wounds mend themselves. They burn a little–resentment at how easily she put him back together (even more easily than she pulled him apart) festering there–but still they are mending: the wounds, their friendship. So he says the words, two words and not the three he wants to say even after everything instead.

_**Already done.** _

The wounds she made with her hate and her tears are still there, scars upon his heart, but the press of her face against his chest as they embrace is like a cool balm, soothing and so very needed.

He needs her, but it is more than that. Clarke is the storm, but Wells knows that he can withstand her, and in her bring about the calm that comes after. He loves her and needs her, but as she stands there in his arms, weak and spent, he can almost smile because he knows that she still needs him too.


End file.
